I work in publishing and I like to read things. Herewith: free association on books, nice things I ate, publishing, editing, and other nice things I ate.

Monday, May 17, 2010

I woke up this morning

at 7:17 am. My alarm was set to go off at 7:30. But I woke myself up out of a very deep sleep (I mean, if the amount of drool on the pillow is some kind of sliding scale indication of how deep the sleep was). I was also in the middle of a very involved dream--a vivid dream, one that I remember all the details to (except, of course, how it ends, since I woke up--how frustrating!! I wonder what happened to that girl in my dream!).

I have no idea what startled me awake. But I do know it was some kind of miniature miracle (what do they call those? Stroke of good luck, maybe?) because if I hadn't woken up until my alarm went off, I probably would have finished the dream and exited REM and snoozed and woken up normally and that would have been the beginning of my day and the end, forever, of whatever happened inside my head last night (I'm a very clean dreamer--I never remember anything I dream, ever, unless I'm woken up in the middle of it). But my dream last night was SO UTTERLY AWESOME that instead of snoozing I waddled over to my computer and started setting down an outline based on the dream. It's the PERFECT story (well, sort of--I'm going to have to seriously edit my dream main character, since she was really credulous and unquestioning, like my dream main characters always are for some reason).

Alas now I have to go to work. But I wanted to share that I got hit by the muse. I thought if anyone could sympathize it would be you guys :)

45 comments:

In my experience, most dreams don't make very good stories! But... sometimes, they make awesome stories. The point you make about your character being unquestioning is a prime example of why dreams do and do not make good stories: there's no logic to them. So, on one side, they don't work, but on the other side, your brain has produced something incredibly creative without the hindrance of that annoying thing called logic!

My hubby is used to me getting up in the middle of the night and stumbling into my writing room to scribble down notes from dreams or dream-like scenes relating to whatever I'm working on. That's how I usually resolve scenes that have me stymied. The unconscious brain is a wonderful thing!!! Dream on, Moonie!!!

I love it when that happens! I love the surreal sensation I carry with me all day after that happens.

I have a weird dream pattern, though. I usually don't remember my dreams - until the next time I go to sleep. Just as I start to nod off, it seems like my brain picks up where it left off. And then I forget it all over again. I actually wrote a story about that!

Ah, a "clean dreamer". At last I have a name for my affliction. For I do consider it a negative. Hubby loves to recount his amazing dreams, and I have nothing to share. Unless, like you, I'm awoken mid-dream. Which happens too rarely.

Fun! Congrats! I love when the muse strikes like that. It's how my next novel got its start. There's a lot of work still to do but that dream was the spark that will carry me through the world-building and development.

Dreams are an amazing way of getting ideas to fix a work or find a new project to stew upon.

Yay for you! I actually started keeping a dream journal for the first time a few weeks ago. (I have a 3-year-old; he wakes me up every night, at least once or twice, to ask if he can crawl into my bed. My REM is almost always interrupted, so I thought, why not take advantage of it?) It's been great - I love my nighttime muse!

You know, I've gotten a lot from dreams, too. Almost three years ago, I had some interesting dreams, decided they'd make a good story put together, and started a book based on them one chapter per dream. Unfortunately, I had more dreams than time to write, stopped at 33K to do NaNoWriMo, and only got back to it last year. At which point I started over again, scrapped the plot, stopped again, and am now considering changing my narrator.

I've had a few attempted short stories stemming from dreams, one of which I still remember it great detail--down to the color and texture of my MC's hair in the moonlight. Nothing finished, sadly. (I tend to have trouble finishing things.)

I remember dreams best when I have time to wake myself up. Mornings when I don't have an alarm, my dreams often continue into my half-awake state and I remember them more fully.

The best and most interesting thing about it, though, is that I'm on the 300th day of the 3rd year of writing down my dreams every morning.

Hehe. My current WIP started from a dream. It woke me up at five in the morning and was made of such awesome, that I had to attempt to capture it. Too bad it was the end of the story. I have to do my own work while awake to figure out what led up to that scene.

I totally have the craziest dreams. They are really nuts, and so vivid sometimes at first I think they actually happened! Unfortunately I'm also the lightest sleeper ever so rarely do they ever finish!

Have you ever woken up from a dream and thought "OMG THAT WOULD MAKE AN AMAZING BOOK" and then write it out? And then look at it 3 days later and think, Good lord, that is some crackheaded stuff. That would be an awful book.

Writing from dreams can be a good thing, as long as I don't have to write from the one I had last night. Word of warning to the wise, evidently red beans with rice and sausage as a late dinner can lead to dreams that would make a terrifying horror novel! ::shudder::

Mine usually involve something like Jeff Probst bicycling around an island, and me crying because he won't give me the million dollars because we just broke up, so then I have to go to school and retake my SATs...

If you usually dream late (as you evidently do), set your alarm to 6:30am, then reset it to 7:00am and get back to sleep ASAP. If you're lucky, you'll be able to slip back into the dream, since you didn't wake up completely. When you wake at 7:00am, you may remember the dream since you didn't have to come out of a deep sleep.

Some folks dream about a hour after they fall asleep. They can set the alarm according.

This has been very effective for me for many years. Whether the dreams - yours or mine - are useful is another matter.